Fantasy and Dreams
by Aileene
Summary: What is your fantasy? this is the question Robin asks Raven late one night. First Chapter is her answer, second chapter will be his, not sure how far this will actually go, but so far fun to right..pls pls review I live for them really :
1. Raven's Dream

**Do not own in anyway shape or form...or Robin/Nightwing would be tied to my bedpost (hey a girl can dream can't she)**

"Not every fantasy is a pretty one you know. Some are sick and twisted, look at the villains we fight." She gave a shrug and then added, "Okay so some of them are just a little sad and frustrating, but others are the epitome of nightmarish fantasy."

"I don't indulge in nightmares Raven, too little time in life to dwell on that." He gave a shrug of his own.

"Bullshit." She turned to stare at him, her gaze penetrating as she let that one word hang in the air.

His eyes widened, it was unlike Raven to swear, she saw it as a poor use of language skills. "It is not." He said this a bit defensively.

"Robin, all you and I have in our past revolves around nightmares. The only one in this whole tower that has the fantasies of the sort you were asking about is probably Starfire." Raven replied succinctly, returning to answering his question about her fantasies without actually answering it.

"Come on Raven, not everything you think about is a nightmare, is it?" He reached out and placed his hands on her shoulders, effectively keeping her from turning from him. Since her father's defeat they had become close, best friends and confidents. They often held conversations of this sort when insomnia and nightmares drove them from the confines of their beds late at night.

"Perhaps not, not even I am creepy enough to live in nightmares I suppose." She said softly turning her gaze from him even as he held her body in place.

"You aren't creepy," His reply was automatic, but no less true than it had been the millions of times he had said it before. "Tell me one of your fantasies and I will tell you one of mine, come on Raven it's a way to pass the time. We agreed when we first started to hold these conversations that we would take turns with the questions, tonight is my turn." He insisted, stubborn as he always was.

"Fine, let go of me I need to think." She pulled from his grasp and moved to sit on the couch, the only light coming in from the moon outside. He sat beside her a few feet away and waited, as patiently as he could.

She would be honest with him, she always was, lying to him anymore was nearly impossible. "Romance and beauty." She finally said, hoping he would leave it at that.

"What about romance and beauty…what do you mean?" Robin was even more curious now. "Do you mean like roses and Shakespeare?" He asked trying to remember some of the books he had seen her read in the past.

"No," She sighed, she should have known better. "I want to be beautiful and sometimes, rarely, but sometimes I allow myself to dream about what would happen if I met someone who thought I was as beautiful as I want to be." She refused to look at him, "The one time I thought that happened, it didn't exactly work out. See nightmares are in all my fantasies."

"You are beautiful Raven, with your eyes and hair," He paused, but he mouth ran before his brain, as usual when he was with Raven. "You have a great figure too, you just tend to hide it behind that cloak of yours so much no one gets a chance to really see it."

Raven slowly turned her head to look at him; her right eye twitched slightly, the only sign of her shock. "My body?" She asked in a strangled whisper.

"Oh, uh…yeah?" Realizing his mistake, he couldn't figure out how to fix it, so he just started talking. "I want to hear your fantasy Raven, like a story or dream, not three words thrown together just to make me shut up."

Choosing to ignore his comment about her looks, after all she wasn't exactly sure what he meant beyond trying to make her feel better, she began to answer his question the way he wanted.

"Very well, I dream," She held his gaze, which was masked as usual, her eyes holding a sardonic tint at the word dream. "I dream of love Robin, the kind that makes you feel whole. The impossible kind, at least for me. I fantasize about someone loving me, even with my anti-social behavior, my powers, my heritage and my creepiness. I dream of an attractive man with blue eyes, silly to care about eye color I know, but it is just my dream really. He has to be strong, strong enough to stand with me when I need him and for me when I can no longer stand. I don't need someone to rescue me per say, just someone who is willing to help me rescue myself I suppose. This is what I dream of when the nightmares don't close in around me and suffocate it away." She looked over his shoulder, so as not to meet his gaze anymore. Imagine, she, the Ice Queen, dreamed of love, what a laugh. Only, he wasn't laughing.

"That's a great dream Raven and I don't see why it's impossible at all." Robin sat there and tried to figure why his heart raced as she had described this dream man, who ever he was Robin didn't want him here and he couldn't figure out why. He cared greatly for his friend, he should want this 'dream man' to appear and make her happy, but all he could think was that if a man like this appeared he would lose Raven forever.

"I don't want to discuss it anymore Robin, it's your turn anyway. What's your dream?" She put a slightly taunting emphasis on dream as she turned back to look at the boy wonder.


	2. Robin's Dream

"Tropical islands, bikinis and the women to wear them." He gave her a cocky grin, hoping she would let him slide, or at the very least not notice that it was an easy and entirely untrue answer. After all, he figured she didn't really want to know what was haunting his dreams lately.

"So you can lie to me, but I have to tell the truth?" A raised eyebrow and barbed words struck him.

"Uh…well…"He stuttered, he should have known she would catch the lie. They were too close of friends for it to be any other way.

"The truth wonder boy, just like you made me tell." She glared at him, still slightly embarrassed by how she had gone on about her fantasy and determined to make him bare as much of himself as she had, if only to equal the vulnerability.

"Fine," He nodded with a bit of a self depreciating smile. "I dream of a girl." He paused at her snort.

"Of course you dream of girls, you are a teenage boy." Her reply was a little disdainful at his answer.

"No, you don't understand," He turned his whole body until he faced her, curling one leg on the couch for a more comfortable position and leaning forward to emphasize his points. "I dream of A girl, I can never see her really clearly, but I know that she is the one person who knows me better than anyone. Her hair is soft, like velvet. Her eyes are full of joy and friendship every time she sees me. When she holds me in her arms I feel loved. She laughs with me and holds me when I cry. She is my best friend and…" his voice trailed off as a realization hit him.

"And? Is that all?" Raven asked, she thought it was a wonderful dream and felt just a little jealous of this girl, that even though she was a dream this girl had more of Robin than Raven would ever have a right to.

Robin looked at her, his mind coming back slowly as he realized that she was talking to him. "No that isn't all, there is more." He swallowed.

"Is this the part that I don't want to hear?" She asked amusement coloring her voice and jealousy shoved down below the surface.

"I don't know." His tone was soft and he looked deep into her face, as if searching for an answer.

"What?" Raven was getting a little irritated with all the staring he was doing.

"You." He replied, a small flush coloring his neck.

"You don't know me?" Confused, Raven tried to put the conversation together in a coherent manner.

"You are her." Robin continued to look at Raven, his eyes still filled with wonder at his discovery. His dream girl was sitting right next to him, his best friend and the girl he had somehow without his knowledge fallen completely and inexplicably in love with.

"Robin you are going to have to start speaking in complete sentences," Frustration seeped into her voice.

"Raven, you are the girl in my dreams." Robin spoke slowly and succinctly so that there could be no confusion in his meaning.

Silence echoed loudly throughout the room.

"Raven?" Her face had gone even paler, if that was possible and her eyes were so wide he thought they might fall out of her head any moment.

"Are you crazy?" She finally hissed, anger and betrayal running through her body and voice. "You think that this is an okay joke to play on me? Some way to get me back for playing a game you started." She jabbed a finger at him, luckily she still had a tenuous grip on her emotions so it wasn't glowing.

"This isn't a joke Raven." He wanted to grab her and hold her, but he was afraid if he touched her now she just might shatter.

"Then what is it? It can't be the truth; you're supposed to like Star." Her voice lost its anger and was now just full of hurt confusion.

"I do like Star, she's a great friend." He paused as he saw her consider his words; he pressed his luck since she was still sitting with him and not disappearing to her room or throwing him through a window. "I love you Rae. I don't know when it happened or how really, but I do know that I do. You are my best friend and I dream of holding you in my arms and feeling the softness of your hair against my cheek. I live for the glimmer of a smile and the force of your glare."

"You're crazy." She confirmed, but the truth of his words resonated throughout his emotions and even up the line of the bond they shared.

"Probably," he agreed. "Not many people run around in spandex and capes outside of the asylum, but I am not crazy about this…in fact I am pretty sure that you are one of the things that keeps me sane."

"You love me?" Her voice was soft and now full of wonder, all the chaos and all the consequences of such a thing ran through her head, but the fact that he loved felt like someone had just given her a canteen of water after a long trip through the desert.

"Yeah, I do." He scooted forward on the couch and when she didn't protest, he took her in his arms. "Do you mind?"

"I don't think I do." The wonder still colored her tone, she hadn't told him that she knew who her dream man was and now here in his arms she was. "How did this happen?"

"Dreams." He replied and tilted her face up so he could brush his lips across hers.

"I guess some dreams and fantasies are good ones then." She replied, as her eyes fluttered shut.

"Definitely." He smiled and leaned down again.

They didn't see the green changeling standing in the doorway to the control room with his mouth on the floor, nor did they see the metallic gleam of an arm reach through the door and jerk him back into the hall. They didn't see or notice anything around them for quite sometime, both reveling in the love and comfort they thought would only exist in their dreams.


End file.
